Oh, lazy days, how I love and need you! Hubs and I are doing NOTHING today...and I'm hoping I'm not forgetting something. It feels so weird not to have to go anywhere or get the kids dressed for any reason. We've fed them and they are happily watching tv in the "home theater" (an inflated air mattress with their bedding and pillows in front of the tv and they got to eat their lunch there) while we relax. Friday was really fun. Hubs' work organizes a company outing every year...well, most companies do that here. Sometimes partners are invited and sometimes they are not. So this year they organized it in our home town...my in-laws are on vacation, so we couldn't leave the kids with them, so we asked my BIL. So as soon as we picked the kids up from school, we had to pack the car really fast, take them to my BIL's house, then pick up some of hubs' coworkers, and get back to our town. THAT was a speedy trip, and we just made it. Then we had the outing and had to go stay at my in-laws' house so we'd be there (they live a block from my BIL) to pick up the kids early in the morning because my nephew had a soccer game to get to, and I had choir rehearsal starting at 9. The outing was pretty cool...we did a GPS scavenger hunt. They broke us into teams and gave us each a GPS device and each team had someone with a smartphone and they downloaded the app we needed. So we had a page with pictures of different things in our town....it might be a design in the sidewalk, or a particular door handle, or a sign...little things that you aren't likely to really notice and are hard to find. Then each one of those pictures has a code number, and the GPS device shows you flags where you will find one of those things, and each flag is associated with a letter. You follow the GPS to one of the flags and look for an item that matches a picture and text the letter and the code number to the guy running it. If they match, he sends you a word or a phrase. At the end, you have to put all the words and phrases you got into a story and you get points for each one you incorporate. There were also bonus assignments along the way...like we had to take a picture that demonstrated our team name. (Everyone got a cinch sack with snacks and water in them and a colored piece of paper and that color was the group you were in and then we had to come up with a team name. My team was Ivo's Harem because Ivo happened to be the only guy on our team) So we took a picture of all of us girls pretending to kiss him on the cheek and he's smiling and giving a huge thumbs up. We had a problem accessing the app though, so we were about 20 minutes late getting started. None of the other teams had any problems so we came in dead last, but we had fun and even without hurrying, we managed to get 18 of 24 flags....it only took a few minutes per flag, so if we hadn't had problems with the connection we would have gotten all of them I think. Hubs' team got all of the flags but lost to the 2nd team because the guy liked their story better. We had so much fun...the biggest let down was the food. For some reason, the restaurant that they ordered pastry from for the beginning while we were getting instructions forgot to order the pastries from their supplier, so they had 6 pieces of pie and then cut up a bunch of pound cake...so 6 people got delicious pastries and the rest got a slice of cake...and they wanted to charge 5 Euros a piece for that cake. (Imagine paying 7 US dollars for a cookie) Then we had dinner at a different restaurant and the woman who was in charge there was horrible! We sat there for 20 minutes before she came over and asked us if everyone had gotten their drinks...she hadn't even taken our order! I ordered Coke Zero and she didn't tell me they didn't have that and then the OTHER server comes and asks who the diet coke is for and I didn't think it was for me because that's not what I had ordered. She just decided that Diet Coke was a good substitute, which is fine, but at least TELL me so I know that that's for me when the server asks! She hands out the menus and doesn't tell us anything...there's always some arrangement where we get a choice of 3 or three things for each course. So they have to call her over to explain what we're allowed to choose from. She comes back to take our order...we have 2 long tables with like...12 people each or so. She explains that we're ordering everything at once and then she will bring each table's orders at the same time so we all eat together. So one lady asks what the soup of the day is...the menu says tomato soup OR soup of the day. The server says she doesn't know...they only have tomato. So the woman says she doesn't like tomato soup and the server rolls her eyes, sighs, and I kid you not...she turns and walks the TWO steps...literally, she just had to turn around...we were right next to the kitchen, to ask what the soup of the day is. Like it was this HUGE effort to have to walk a couple of feet and ask a question. Then she was exasperated that the woman decided she didn't want soup, she'd take carpaccio instead. Yes, because having expended so much energy asking about the soup meant the lady was then OBLIGATED to order it. Geez. I ordered bread with olives and a garlic butter. Everyone at our table was served....except me. She moves on to the next table and I still have nothing. So everyone at our table has to wait...someone asks about my bread. We're assured it's coming. 10 minutes later it's still not there. We ask again...it's coming. Finally they bring me a cutting board with a chunk of bread and a knife to cut it, but nothing to spread the butter with. Good thing I don't like butter anyway and wasn't going to eat it...but they didn't give me a plate or anything to put the sliced bread on. They come and clear the table...except for my stuff. People ordered drinks that never came. Then they start bringing out the main courses...I had ordered steak, which she did not ask how I would like it cooked. She had served most of our table and then switched to the other table again, and again I have nothing. She's at the other table, behind me where I can not see her or hear her and gets angry that I didn't react when she asked who the steak belonged to. It was supposed to be a tender sirloin...it was NOT tender. After three bites I could hardly chew because of gristle, I started looking more closely and had to cut away a third of it because of all that gristle and fat. The server brings out a plate with Steak and fish..."who ordered this?" No one...she gets angry. "SOMEONE ordered this!" She gives up and sets it aside, but she's PISSED. Then she hands out the rest, and EVERYONE has their order and guess what's still sitting there? The plate she INSISTED someone had ordered. So SHE must have made a mistake, or the kitchen did, and she blamed it on our group. No apology or anything. A couple of the girls had ordered sauces, which you had to pay extra for, to go with their meat dishes...they never came. So they asked, were assured it was coming. Everyone has been served...still no sauces, so they are waiting. They finally dig in with no sauces, but they keep asking and keep getting told it's coming. They gave the 1 girl one tiny little dish of sauce and then the other girl asked where hers was and the server says she didn't know she ordered it, thought she was asking about it for the other girl...so they had to share. But I bet they charged for both since it was ordered. It was getting REALLY smokey because it was an open style kitchen, so the smoke wafted out into the dining room from the grill, and since we were just feet from the service window, we were sitting in smoke...and then the smoke detectors went off.I will not be going back to that place...rude service, not great food, cramped and smoky atmosphere...no thanks. I went to leave a review on one of those pages on the internet and I looked and almost everyone has given them a 1 or a 2 rating out of 10 for the service, so it must not have just been the size of our group. OH!! And they gave one person wine in a cola glass because the one waitress had broken too many wine glasses or something. And someone else ordered an Amaretto instead of a dessert and they gave him a totally different liqueur...kind of like my Coke Zero. They just decide someone else is close enough and hope you don't notice it's not what you ordered. Wonder how long they will stay in business! At least the rest of the day was fun and the company was good. If it wasn't a fun group, it would have been miserable!

Lynne, good luck with Nano! I have several friends who do that. They all say it's fun, but pretty crazy.Your "no comment" to Sarah has now got me worried about what you did with the end of The Reign. At LEAST tell me that no one is lost in some TRIVIAL way like...getting hit by a bus...that there is a good solid reason for the way things happen!! I can even handle a character death if it happens for a good reason. Not that I would expect you to play with our emotions by a senseless death (Sarah is crossing the street and no one in her guard sees that she is about to fall into an open drainage pipe...bye bye overlord...What's his bucket...starts with an A...Ardon? gets to be overlord) in the end but "no comment" sounds so suspiciously like an "I don't want to give it away and lose readers". Just tell me nothing is done without reason.

Sarah, that's so sad that the series has kind of been ruined for you. On the one hand I'm really intrigued now as to the ending that was written and why people are having such powerful reactions to it. On the other, I don't want to spend money on books that I most likely will not like in the end, just to answer my curiosity, nor do I want to reward the author with my business for upsetting thousands of fans. I might see if I can find them cheap somewhere...it sounds like a lot of people might be selling their copies.

I've got a 40th birthday party to go to this morning. I should be working for Rochelle today, but I've shifted her to Wednesday today. She was happy with that. I will be working a bit for our business today too. Other than that, I'm fairly light on, but November is a busy month for me, with two book signings and four book club visits.

Songbird - Wow, that visit to the restaurant sounds awful! You should have objected to paying for your meal when the service was that bad. Terrible. Oh, and about the end of The Reign? No comment.

Got some stuff done today that I've been wanting to work on. I might work on fan fic tonight, or for sure tomorrow. I work tomorrow from 12:00-4:00, then I have to go out to the store to get some stuff, namely a prescription refill and possibly some light bulbs. But then, I don't work Tuesday, so that's basically a free trip to the store.

Today's Melbourne Cup day here in Australia. It's a big horse race that a lot of people bet on. I don't bet, but I like watching it, because I like horses. In Melbourne they get a public holiday today, the rest of us aren't so fortunate, but I will still get to sit down and see if I can pick the winner!

Had a pretty crappy day. Just a bunch of frustrations and things that agitate and worry me. My grandma turned 83 yesterday, and she's not in the best of health, and I worry about her a lot now. I'm also frustrated by my new job getting held up. Now, I might not be working at my new job until December. That means that I'm stuck in a job that I'm about fed up with. My only options are to stick it out and hope for the best, look elsewhere, or just simply quit.

I wish that it was feasible that I could quit my current job and come back when my new position starts. But that probably won't happen. But I really don't like working up at the front desk as a receptionist, and it feels like my new job is just getting further and further away.

I just hope that I'm in a better mood when I go into work Wednesday, because if I wake up and feel like crap and feel like not going in, I'm going to do something that I haven't done in nearly a year, and call off. I don't need to be going to work feeling like crap, physically or emotionally, especially this time of year where I hope that work and home are escapes from the things that irritate me.

Oh, and I'll seriously be seeing a doctor soon about this crap, too. I need for something to change before I do actually put in my notice that I'm quitting my job. I've just about had enough, and not one good thing yet has happened to me today. Just very unhappy right now.

I really feel like crap right now. I've had a pounding sinus headache since I woke up this morning. I've tried taking some medication for it, but so far, it hasn't helped much at all.

I did run some errands today a little while ago. I have some stuff I'd like to get done, and I'll try and work on some of it now. This week so far has really sucked. Frustrated, overwhelmed and wiped out yesterday, and feeling like crap today. I hope that things will change for the better, and soon.

Now my headache's finally gone! Took it long enough to go away. And I do have to say that Taster's Choice French Roast coffee I got today is pretty good--better than the normal Taster's Choice my grandma gets. I just wish that Walmart had the vanilla and hazelnut flavored stuff.

I'm still sticking to my plans of working on some stuff tonight before I get to bed.

This past weekend was wonderful-very quiet and relaxing. I slept a lot and generally tried to get re-charged. Last week was so busy work wise! This month feels like it'll fly by due to Thanksgiving..we have a ton of clients to fit in since we're taking that Thursday-Friday off. Today we only had one house though, it was wonderful! I got to have lunch with my parents since we were done so early.

This weekend is my best friend's wedding and I think ultimately I've lost about 15 pounds..I gained a few during the whole car situation but I should fit okay in my dress. I just won't be as skinny as I wanted to be! I want to keep going with my weight loss and fit back into a 7! Maybe I can have decent Christmas photos?

Song-oh goodness, you had an awful dining experience!! That sounds truly terrible! I listed my copy of Divergent on eBay because the ending (and last book in general) was just so bad. It's bittersweet, since they're starting to ramp up promotion for the movie in March but I just don't think I can see it. Maybe on DVD..

Lynne-good problem to have, needing more copies of The Heir!! I'm slowly getting over the shock of Allegiant, but I'm hoping to buy The Heir fairly soon..perhaps before Christmas even! Allegiant took so much more out of me than I expected. I would look for some Sarah Dessen to read if you can..she's a huge inspiration. I'm toying with the idea of joining nanowrimo.

Hi all! Big concert is on Saturday...yesterday was our last rehearsal. I'm so nervous! There are still little things not going well, and that makes me panic a bit because people pay 15 Euros per ticket...so it HAS to be good.Had a meeting yesterday for advice about MM and his crying. There's a doctor, someone from social services, a developmental specialist and a couple other people on the team and they view videos of MM and read through the questionnaires filled out by us and by his teachers, and they analyze it to see if there are areas of abnormal behavior from kids his age. It appears he has a lot of anxiety, and a fear of failure, which presents itself with the crying. So when he is in class and he is supposed to get out his math book, and all the kids have theirs out and he can't find his as quickly, he gets upset...he probably sees it as a kind of failure, and it frustrates him and he cries. When he has to get dressed after PE and his sock won't go on, he sees it as a failure, and he cries. When he loses a board game, he sees it as a failure and he cries. So when anything doesn't go the way he envisioned it, it's a failure to him, which is frustrating. They suggested play therapy, which looks like a really good option for him...I looked it up. The problem is that you have to be referred by a specific group and he probably won't qualify for it to be paid for because his cognitive development is too advanced for his age. He's ahead of his age group in reading, math, critical thinking skills, etc...and this program is usually catered to kids with a deficiency in those areas, whereas MM not only has no deficiency, but he is advanced in those areas. His deficiency is purely on an emotional/social level, so they have to see how they can get him the therapy he needs without the referral, because this team is only to give advice...they don't have the power to refer him. Frustrating! Especially since I know that he gets the fear of failure from me. Bug has the same thing. She came home today with a math paper she was disappointed in. Because she made ONE mistake. She had 55 out of 56 correct...the class average was 51. She made herself SICK over the swimming lessons. So both my kids have it, but MM struggles with dealing with those emotions. Bug can talk to me about it and express what is upsetting her, and she isn't so extreme that the little things like getting dressed bother her like they do with MM. He really NEEDS the therapy, I think, so I hope they can work it out. I don't want him to be struggling with this for the rest of his life.

Sarah, good for you on the weight loss! That is fantastic! Have fun at the wedding!

Lynne, that IS a great problem to have! How are sales for The Crown going?? I've posted reviews everywhere I know to post them. Is there anything else I can do to help?I didn't have to pay for my meal because it was the company outing, so the company paid for it. I know they did demand a discount on the pastries at the first place because 5 euros was really too much to charge for a slice of pound cake. But I don't think they asked for a discount at the restaurant because I think the main server was actually the owner....she just should NOT be in a customer service business. But since we got what we ordered and for the most part, it was good, they couldn't have gotten a discount.About the end of The Reign? You're MEAN!!